The Battle Scene At Writing-on-Stone

If you go to southern Alberta, one place you should check out immediately is the Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park. The site is one of the best examples of Indigenous petroglyphs in Canada and those petroglyphs tell some amazing stories.

In the park, which is 17.8 square kilometres, you will find 50 petroglyphs and thousands of Indigenous works. At the location you will also find a reconstructed North-West Mounted Police outpost on its original site. Sadly, the original building was burned down by unknown individuals after it was closed in 1918.

One of the more amazing things about the park is that it is not only an Alberta Historic Site, and a National Historic Site of Canada, but as of 2019, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It is believed that the Indigenous people were camping in the area as long as 3,500 years ago and some of the rock art is believed to be that old.

As for the battle scene, it is located on a cliff overlooking Milk River and is one of the best petroglyphs in the entire park. The scene is also one of the most elaborate rock art carvings found in the great plains of North America. In the petroglyph, most of the attacking figures are on foot but 11 horses are shown. On the left side of the petroglyph you will also find figures inside a central tipi and two figures in the centre of the carving hitting each other with a hatchet.

Since the gun and horse were introduced to the Northwestern Plains around 1730, and with the fact that guns and horses are seen in the petroglyph that dates it to after 1730. The scene depicted is believed to be an actual battle described by a Blackfeet elder named Bird Rattle. He linked the battle to the Retreat Up The Hill battle fought in the Milk River area around 1866. The battle consisted of a combined war party of Gros Ventre, Crow and Cree, who lost 300 warriors. Experts concur that the design was most likely carved into the rock around the 1800s.

While the true origin of the battle scene may never ben known, it shows the changing landscape that the horse brought to the Indigenous people of southern Alberta and today is a glimpse into a long gone era. E-mail me at craig@canadaehx.com

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